


Merry Old Town

by Nope



Category: Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-05-12
Updated: 2003-05-12
Packaged: 2018-10-31 18:03:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10904568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nope/pseuds/Nope
Summary: Years later, Dodger comes back to London.





	Merry Old Town

London rose and fell under Jack Dawkins. He'd been too long a sea, become too used to rough planking beneath his bare feet and the solemn slow sway of the tides. The hobnailed shoes were newly taken if not new, and too tight and heavy on his feet; and the cobbles didn't tilt the way his legs expected, so that his gait was an unsteady stumble of a thing. It was of great mirth to the dock men moving around him, carrying barrels and bales on and off ships, men whose immense girth mocked Jack's small light frame. He twisted a sneer but had no ready retort. London was around him, old London, his London, bane and hearth all in one and it stole all his thoughts for its own.

Jack pulled the heavy, waxy-green overcoat in tighter over the thin, white, poorly-starched shirt that scratched at his chest and let the winds icy fingers roam where they would. The coat hung to just below his knees, slapping at the calves of his brown corduroy trousers and flapping in his path; its shapeless bulk and his shambling gait gave him the appearance of a giant flower-bound insect, or some fallen angel with his wings folded on his back, seeking Jerusalem in England's green. He carried all his worldly goods with him, which took little effort for he had none, and all his memories, which took a lot for they were many and heavy upon him.

He'd lost ten years to the cell, hard labour and high rigging, ten years to the clear chime of the watch bell, the rising screech of gulls, thin grain and sharp splinters beneath his feet and the rough cut of rope against his fingers. Ten years gone and nothing to show for it, not even scars; and London had barely blinked. Salt lingered in his mouth and nose but his ears and eyes and fingers knew their home. That old familiar itch. 

He turned into Smithfield, letting the echo of his footsteps take him where they would and his hands fluttered about him, darting from the cold smoothness of a painted iron streetlamp to the rough brush of a stone wall behind the crackling leaves of half dead ivy to the rough broken bark of trees that had been old even before he was born until he felt the prickle of eyes on him and shoved his hands deep in his pockets to still their flight.

There were ravens hopping in the Tower's grounds and the bubbling laughter of carefree children. Eyes used to picking different shades from an endless wide of blue-green-grey were startled by splashes of colour; a scarlet waistcoat here, a navy scarf there, a flash of white kerchief, bright green grass and dark olive coats, arresting silk patterned ties, the magpie shine of gold watch chains, tempting leather wallets carelessly poking from loose pockets. His hands came up of their own accord but his fingers were trembling, shook still when he tightened his fists; and London trembled too, crashing around him, dissolved into noise.

Closing his eyes brought him no relief. He could hear St. Paul's low, hollow chimes. Horses clacked and carriage wheels thudded arrhythmically on the broken streets. Lost gulls screamed above him and pigeons hooted and tapped around his feet. In the dark colours behind his eyelids, it sounded like the children were screaming, cut through with shrill police whistles and a dark angry rumble of conversation, the sounds of something flapping, sharp scrape of a knife grinder, bellows of merchants accompanying the trill of the match girls, a small school bell chime falling under the still tolling Cathedral Bells, shaking in his skin, his bones, and he clapped his hands to his ears and, turning, ran into what felt very much like a cotton covered wall.

"I say, watch it, mate," laughed an oddly familiar voice. "Near had the both o' us down in the muck and-- Why, blow me! Dodger! Is that you? It's me, Charley!"

Jack chanced himself to look and promptly behold Charley Bates, grown from mugging sprite to tall and hard and all but reputable looking, dressed in clean but well worn grey overalls. Charley's bright eyes were a twinkling grey to his own dark and steady brown and where once they had shared the same hue of hair, Charley's had darkened to almost black while sun and sea had lightened Jack's to an unenviable mouse colour. Life clearly suited Charley, or he it, for he was hale and hearty and the hands he clapped to Jack's shoulders were heavy and would have knocked him down had the other man intended it.

"Is that you? It's me, Charley!"

Jack nodded and braced himself and, true to expectation, Charley roared with laughter and pulled him into a tight embrace. His onetime companion's perpetual humour at least had not changed though, as he found once they had retired to the nearest convenient watering hole and drunk enough to free their tongues, that little else about his friend remained as it had been before.

"It's pure luck I'm in the city," explained Charley. "It's market day on the 'morrow and I'm down from Northamptonshire to bring cattle."

"Cattle," cried Jack. "Wot, have you gone straight, Charley? Say it ain't so."

"Not one hundred, maybe, but right enough for all that; after Sikes, I fair swore it better to be a honest living poor man than a rich prig swinging on the rope." 

Charley laughed at what he considered a fair turn of phrase, but Jack made no reply, sinking down on his elbow on the beer stained table, worrying the amber and froth of his ale and tracing lines in the wood with his free hand. There was a kind of silence between them. The pub was dark and cosy, wood beamed and smoke hazy so that the other patrons seemed almost wreath like, lonely men in purgatory waiting for a sign.

"Say, me ol' mate." Charley interrupted the slow drift of Jack's thoughts and, with the air of a man who has by devious and devilish means come to some great conclusion, asked "Got any lodgings?"

"Have I? Wot, with me just back on the dry? Course I have, Charley, mate."

"Money?" said Charley and, at Jack's look, shook his head and laughed heartily. "I suppose you want some place to sleep in to-night, don't you?

"You have lodgings, do you?"

"Just till market's done. But a roof for a night is better than for none."

Jack could find no fault in this argument and, on consideration, allowed Charley the favour of letting him pay for the drinks as well. They drank the sun down and the moon up and in the cold stillness after, breath misting in the dark room, Jack had no objection to Charley lifting the covers, nor slipping beside him, nor to any of what followed; but he slept light and fitfully in that circle of arms, dreaming of old days and the nights that followed, of a shrivelled old man with a mat of red hair and a greasy flannel gown, of a drooling tongue and long gnarled fingers sliding on and in him and of a curl of blonde hair and an innocent questioning voice; and he woke long before his companion and was up and dressed and out on the streets before Charley had even suggested stirring.

It was early, echoes of the cock crowing early. London was cold and a thin film of dew slicked the cobbles beneath his feet. The window shutters were still closed but there were a few people moving in the street, filling stalls and sweeping the front of stores and the like. Bumming some tobacco from a street sweeper, Jack filled and lit Charley's spare pipe and took a seat on some cold but handy stone steps to watch.

The street grew full by degrees, by a slow drift and ebb that left more people than it took and Jack sat and looked and listened and the itch came back into his fingers. With his eyes closed, he sorted through the various clicks and clacks and thuds and thumps of passing footfalls, sneaking shorter and shorter peeks to check, till he could tell a Bobby by march alone, and pick the paupers from the princes by the sounding quality of their shoes.

The sun came up over the roofs, easy on his skin through the smog haze then turned the sky a blue tinged off-white and he opened his eyes slowly to the light, letting London filter in around him. There, a washerwoman; slim pickings and a hard earner besides. There, a street rat, worthless save for distractions and a scapegoat if need by. There, a beak by the turn of his heels, rich takings but risky; and he had no Charley with him for the two man game. There, a well-to-do young man in a black top hat Jack quite fancied, a well cut waistcoat, jacket, trousers, shoes that spoke, if not of high profit then of enough to treat and a gaze that, to Jack's surprise, was mirroring his own.

The very instant their eyes met, the man's cheeks bloomed red and he ducked his head, quickly moving away around a handy corner. Never one to let even passing curiosity go without satisfaction, Jack leapt swiftly to his feet and, by means a well strode short cut, came back out onto the street a step in front of the man, who stopped abruptly on seeing him, coloured again and timidly said "Oh! I, I say! P-Pardon me!"

"Wha'chu gawpin' at?" demanded Jack, taking a sharp look at the man; something stirred and he tried to picture the brown hair lighter, the pale skin soot darkened, the man bereft of the height and weight years had given him, and the clothes replaced with rags. And in that moment, before the man had scarcely thought to reply to the opening question, Jack realised: "Why! My eyes! It's little Nolly."

"I'm sorry, sir," said the man. "I do believe you've mistaken me for some other gentleman."

"Come now," said Jack, a little sharper. "It's Oliver, ain't it? 'Course it is. Little Oliver Twist."

"It's Brownlow," corrected Oliver, for it was him indeed; "Oliver Brownlow. Forgive me; do I have the pleasure of your acquaintance?"

"You have had," agreed Jack easily, with a smile all his own. "Jack Dawkins it is; although in those days I was known, among my more intimate friends such as yourself, as the artful Dodger."

At the name, a most curious change came over Oliver; sweat rose on his brow and his face grew quiet pale save for the sudden blush of colour in his cheeks, the thin slash of his lips and the widening and darkening eyes. So impressed was Jack by this that he made no resistance when the other man set a hand upon his elbow and all but dragged him around the corner and into a dingy, soot stained alley.

"I don't know what your game is," began Oliver, still holding him tight.

"'Course you know wot me game is," grinned Jack, making no move to escape. "Same as it ever was, my dear. Same ol' same old."

"I'm not like that, see," insisted Oliver.

"'Course," said Jack, nodding away. "Got too heavy a grip for the easy life, I reckon."

"Well, I-- Oh!" Oliver let go, hands fluttering up. "Well, I didn't-- I mean--" He backed away as Jack came forward until the wall prevented further retreat, though by the stretching of his feet it seemed he well wished he could back up that as well. "I really, I must protest--"

"Must 'ee?" asked Jack and, reaching up, relieved Oliver of his hat with one hand and touched the other lightly against the other man's cheek. The skin was as silk smooth as he remembered but as his fingers slipped down the jaw he brushed a faint roughness of stubble alien to memory and a most involuntary sigh escaped him. "My little Oliver. How yeh've grown."

Oliver made a little noise of no consequence and as Jack's free hand slipped lower to slide against proof of desire, his lips slipped open and Jack took that as a most propitious cue to lean forward and cover them with his own, a deliriously soft hardness that he caressed once with a careless flicker of his tongue, hands sliding on smooth cloth and smoother skin; and, feeling Oliver tremble violently, like a drowning man seeking one last gasp of air, he withdrew a little way and smiled softly until Oliver's eyelids raised and a little of the glassiness had gone from his eyes.

"Hello, my covey," said Jack, softly, barely more than a breath trembling at his lips. "What's the row?"

"I'm-- I'm not--" Oliver stuttered, spluttered and stopped; then, arms wheeling, he shoved Jack away and, lips wet red, cheeks flush, hair mussed, shirt rumpled and with one collar up and one down, he leapt from the alley with frightfully haphazard strides and was lost to the crowd and to London's ever open arms.

Jack just smiled. He straightened his shirt. He smoothed out his coat and hair. He tapped against the fingers of his right hand a leather-made and silk-lined wallet held in his left, his thumb brushing over the neat, raised stitching of the letters O and B.

"Hello, my covey," he repeated to himself. "What's the row?"

And, donning Oliver's forgotten hat, the artful Dodger stuck his hands in his pockets and wandered out into the streets, whistling a jaunty tune.


End file.
